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The recent demographic jump in Tirana made the rent increase the average rent. For example, in a country were the main part of the population can't expect to get more than 400€ a month, our rent, for a flat outside on the ring without special interest, is already 400€ a month. The official national minimum pay is 140€ a month.

It's hard to pay a rent with an Albanian salary, but it's also hard to get a job in a country where the unemployment concern around 14% of the population.

Of course, there is some, big, expensive and fancy stores in the capital which hire a lot of people. It's getting developed in main avenues, and in some places in the suburb (like the Cristal Center, a big mall which has the nickname of Diamond of Albania) but, from what I see, it doesn't make work and feed the whole population.

In this situation, people developed their own strategies to develop their business, to get money at the end of the month. In Tirana, it seems that a lot of people are living from small stores. Markets are quite developed, and you can find many stores like clothes seller, carpet seller, small honey-raki or really small vegetable producers...selling in small shops or sometimes directly on the pavement.

In many streets, you can buy small plastic bag of pop corn for 50 Lek (less than 0,40 €), find people seating behind a table and selling single cigarettes, sweets, grilled corn...

If it can seem chaotic, it can also be surprisingly organized. The main example of this hidden organization concern the pavement's libraries. By chance I met a Balzac books translator once I was looking for buying an English-Albanian dictionary. He introduced me to the libraries' shelves system.

The book sellers on the street belong to the same company who can't afford for renting a store. The managers decided so to divide the categories in the all city. One seller, one place, one category. The sellers get something like 20 or 25 % of what they sell, but do not pay if the books are damaged by rain.

Close to the train station who'll find more "small literature", as said the translator, with what we call in french "Train station books": Books you read on the beach, in a train, or on your toilets (at least I do). In front of the gynecologic hospital, you'll find what he called "The literature", with a lot of French authors translated to Albanian like Balzac or Jean Paul Sartre (Zhan Pol Sartr) near by the austrian Zigmund Frojd (Sigmund Feud). Going to other side of the city, when you go across Skanderberg square and the channel, you can find some educative books, where I found, for example, a method book to learn french...You can find many other pavement-shelves, when you are walking in the city and its parks.

What I found interesting in this situation is that looking at the books lying on the grass or the pavement, an untrained eye (like mine) would only have seen some chaos in a developing country when it's a company which just try to avoid an expensive rent, but hired people to work on specific literature field. For sure, when they will have more money, and avoid the destruction and the stealing of books, they will probably rent a store. But right now, instead of doing nothing, they begin to earn money. Even if sometimes the police come to give them fine (Edi Rama, the mayor, made a big to priority to release the center of illegal small stores), they are a part of a cultural cheap access.

What we see is and understand, as it sadly is with many things coming from mass-media, not the situation how it is. The sellers are not poor guys selling alone some books. They are employees with colleagues, providers and customers to advice. But without knowing the background, we misunderstand what's in front of us.

I will talk later about the book selling system in Tirana and how book sellers share the pavement.

but right now, I would like to advertise about the auto-publication of my first photo-book, with french text only (for the moment). I have been publishing: Tirana, la fin d'un été thanks to TheBookEdition.com.

The book is 43 pages, with 36 pictures divided in five parts. It's a photographic point of view I propose you to discover on Tirana and its neighborhood.

I will not be a best-seller, and I still (have to) work a lot to improve myself, but it's already a pretty good feeling to have a physical cover on my work. This first experience is calling a next one. I am preparing a book on my last trip (still in french...) which should be over in some weeks or months...

If some people are interested to get the book, in an english version, I can work on it if you ask me. Just let me know.

Or else, you can get it in french, if you wish, for 6,26€ as pdf, or for 12,5€ as a book (15x15cm). Most of the pictures are not published anywhere else, and the one which already are, can be discovered with a new (con)text.

Bürek is an institution in Albania, a bit like croissant in France, currywurst in Germany, fransek hot dog in Denmark, pizza in Italy, french fries in Belgium...Like all those specialities, bürek is really healthy. I am sure that in newspapers, doctors defend that eating one or two bürek a day is good to keep fit. So, as I kept the dietetic habits I took in the previous countries, I should actually be in a great form without knowing it...

Bürek is a dish exported, if not created, by the Ottoman Empire in all the areas under its control. From Bosnia and Herzegovina to Israel, from Armenia to Greece, through Turkey or Serbia...people are eating bürek. It can be considered as a common point, a reconciliation and unity factor. Bürek passes through the borders and its thin film of fat protect it from nationalist and religious attacks.

So, dear pacifist friends, gourmet, "Balkan-Caucasia-MiddleEast" friends, you will find - right after the french introduction - the recipe of...

Après avoir recouvert la garniture de quelques couches de pâtes, passer au four durant...le temps nécessaire.
After you covered the garnish with few layers of dough, put it in the oven for...the necessary time.

Before to visit anything, it's needed to find your marks. If I am used to intentionally get lost - and don't find my way back unintentionally- it's still useful to know the main axes.

Our flat is literally located at the crossing point between the ring and a long and straight main boulevard. From this highly contrasted street you can reach Skanderberg, the center of the capital, which unless is, unless its greyness, quite contrasted too.

Two of the main arteries of the capital with universities, casinos, banks, some fancy bars, many shops...Those ways, seem to be like amplifiers of Tirana's paradox -and maybe Albanian's- on architectural, social and even religious level.

In the present article I will present you the few things I got from my different walks, talks and researchs.

Regarding to the architectural side, the contrast is easy to get. According to BBC News, Tirana' population passed from 200 000 and 800 000 in the 90's in a certain anarchy.
Following the fall of the communist dictature and due to an economical and demographical development Tirana had to build a lot of towers - a bit like during the 60'-70' in France- and not to care so much about the old buildings from the communist period (or even previous) which will, at a point, be destroyed to create new residential or business buildings.

But, one the other hand, if no plan or architectural specifications seem to be respected, the mayor, Edi Rama, put order and life in his city. Since he is mayor, 10 years ago, he destroyed many illegal shops or buildings to create parks, plant trees (around 1800 according to Wikipedia...I know BBC is much more serious), and even painted many buildings in bright colors to give a new aspect to his city.

But he didn't solved the drinkable water, electricity access, and traffic problems, so for some opponents it would be tied to his former artist background. The city is looking better, but the life standards can still be considered as lower than in Western Europe. But, looking at the post obituaries on utility poles, we realize that Albanians have the same Life Expectancy at Birth than the Americans (around 78 years).

The other significant paradox is social. Between those who benefit and those, like for examples Roma people, who don't benefit at all from economical development it's not a gap, nor a fracture, it's a canyon. During the communist period, even if everyone was employed (to build the hundreds of thousands bunkers at the border line) and was living from low wages and few rations...the life level was low for the majority of the population.

From this contrast, or this canyon, I would remind those boulevard, frequented by beggars (children or not), street sellers...trying to earn some Lek from people who can now enjoy their purchasing power to spend time and money in coffees, fashionable clothes or various equipment.

Recent establishment of social services can't yet equalize the situation and NGOs still seem to be needed. The canyon will still be a reality for a few years. But, you can say, that's not a breaking new on this planet. Living in an Albanian shanty town or a french one is equally the same.

Then, the last contrast I'll develop today, requires much more attention and discussions. It's the religious aspect. Religion is such a hard topic in Balkan as it defined the conflicts and actual map of the region. And in Albania, it takes place in Skanderberg, the city center.

Even if the, still recent, explosion of Yugoslavia began during the huge bankrupt of the early 90's which ruined the former federal state, those events are mostly presented as religious or ethnical conflicts (orthodox Serbia against the Muslim Kosovo, Vojvodina, or Bosnia and Herzegovina or catholic Croatia).

The conflicts between Greece and Albania are too often presented as orthodox-muslim conflicts. But the religion appears to just be a symbol in an old and complicated History between those two countries. There is no holy war or Jihad.

First, even if religious practice was forbidden during the communist period, Albania was a peaceful mix of cultures and religions until the 90's when Western missionaries took advantage of the new political system to enter Albania. With those new missionniries, and the Balkan crisis, the religion became tied with political, ethnical and territorial issues.

In Albania, a "70% Muslim country" (according to more than 40years old statistics) the recent erection of a massive orthodox cathedral is, somehow, considered as a provocation. Just in front of the main, but medium, mosque of Tirana this new building is dressed in white, blue and golden yellow.

Low level of pray practice, alcohol (I don't mean alcoholism), food habits, dress code...Tirana, can not be consider as a practicing Muslim city. So if people care about this orthodox church it' much more because the colors remind of Greece than any religious aspect. The architect of this new cathedral is Steven Papadatos, a greek-american. And there, in Albania, Albanian Orthodox are often named "Greeks". But in Western Europe, how do we talk about people with arab or african roots? As citizens with various cultural background, or as muslim? How do we appreciate mosques constructions? Any look to Balkan, or precisely Albania and Tirana, from above wouldn't be justified.

So, unless the high (and old) rates, Albania is not a muslim country. If the politicians -and a part of the population- is phobic it's not religious. We can talk about an "Hellenic-phobia", which is given back by Greeks who are also, for a part, suffering of "Albanian-phobia".

Through this walk along the main boulevards, I so found some marks in the city as in the society, even if both are full of paradoxes and shades.
Without being a specialist, it appears one more time that a city and its streets, buildings, and people can be considered as a huge opened learning area.
And, still, being in an other country always make you reconsider your own marks in your own (former) country.

Version française, plus bas
Tirana is a big city, so you can miss some details, nice streets, or some important monuments. But if there is something you can't miss...it's the traffic. We, me and my room mates, don't miss it. Leaving on the "ring", from morning to evening, in my flat or outside, we always have to deal with this traffic. It's a part of our life.

Tirana, according to a french embassy' presentation, was empty of cars until 1985 because of the political and economical situation. For sure, someone who came 25 years ago wouldn't recognize at all the Albanian capital. The previous and recently built infrastructures don't seem to be adapted to this new influx.

It's a huge, chaotic, and so noisy, jam. At least on the main avenues and boulevard going across the city. As I told you earlier, a blind person would, from our flat, be able to discover the "dynamism" and the life of the city. But he would, for sure, need some assistance to go across the city. The priority has been given to cars and there is not even clear passages to cross the streets.

I was asking to a friend how many pedestrians die every year from traffic. Surprise, one died last year and it became a focus point for the newspapers and the politics. The circulation was even worst after what, because of policemen trying to "regulate" the traffic. Like they did when I just arrived to Tirana: they stopped all the cars for 10 minutes on a round about -a crossing point between 4 main avenues-, running and whistling as much as they could. An "official" had to pass through Tirana. He passed. And then, to reorganize the traffic, the policemen just left to let the huge chaos go back to a normal chaos.

But the good thing is, as long as you don't need an ambulance, that the traffic is quite slow when it's not paralyzed. That's probably why there is not so much mortal accidents.

Anyway, after a few days you just get used, and become a "hole-in-the-traffic" hunter. You stare at the cars, find the hole, run a bit, find your way, reach the other -holy- side alive, and try to look like the most normal as you can.

You just have to got used to your new high and permanent adrenalin level.